PORTRAIT

The grounds, the setting and food was all so perfect but at the end of the day it was the staff that ultimately made our whole experience perfect .

Nikki & Damian

Gourmet Food

At Ballinacurra House, we pride ourselves of continuing on from Kinsale’s reputation of the Gourmet Capital of Ireland – but as usual we like to do it with a twist!

So the recipe for an amazing meal at Ballinacurra is take one great Irish chef, with the freshest of local ingredients, a little pinch of flavour that you can’t quite name, and mix it with a modern twist – and you have it all.

Our philosophy of food is a modern approach to using the fantastic local ingredients that are available. Our eggs and salad leaves come from the O’Regans Farm down the road, the fish straight from the local Kinsale boats by Jimbo, our herbs from our own garden … to name a few. And we don’t buy in factory-made canapés, desserts or tarts. They are all made onsite.

Apart from our Formal Dining and Wedding Menus, we also aim to have a little fun with our Casual Dining menus. You can have ultra-casual One Pots, the trendy Tapas Suppers, the fun Asian Wok meals, homemade pizzas from our wood-fired pizza oven, family style ‘platter’ dinners, the ultimate Ballinacurra Burger Bar or a range of barbecue options. Or if you have a particular favourite dish or would like our chef to develop a variation of any dish, let us know and you can discuss it with him.

Renowned Chef David Rice Joins Ballinacurra

Before joining Ballinacurra House, David spent 2 years working as head tutor at Dublin’s premier cookery school, Cooks Academy. This enabled himto extend his skills beyond just cooking, and develop further his people and teambuilding skills. Prior to this, David was a senior chef at Dublin’s Michelin star restaurantChapter One. Before that he was head chef at the Mustard Seed Lodge in Adare, Co. Limerick where he won Best Chef in Limerick at the Restaurant Association of Ireland Awards 2010. In addition, the Mustard Seed won Best Use of Local Ingredients in 2009 at the Georgina Campbell Awards during David’s tenure.

He was also fortunate enough to spend a year in the famous kitchens of Roly’s Bistro in Ballsbridge and to have completed work experience in London at Gordon Ramsay’s Claridges, River Café and Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen in Cornwall.

David has done cookery demonstrations and pop-up restaurants with some of Ireland’s top chefs, such as Ross Lewis, Oliver Dunne, Stephen Gibson, Paul Flynn and Kevin Dundon.

David has made several television appearances to date, some of which included TV3’s Ireland AM, promoting Irish organic food and RTE’s series “Guerilla Gourmet”. He was involved in the Irish HospiceFoundation “Zest” cookbook where three of his recipes were published. David also spent some time as a regular food writer for Easy food magazine whilst working in Dublin.

David trained in professional cookery at The Limerick Institute of Technology where he won student of the year and represented Ireland in Europe at cookery competitions. He is a big fan of Italian food and really enjoys working with seafood. He likes to work directly with food producers because it’s important to know where your food comes from. David is a firm believer that a good cook is clever with ingredients and does not over-complicate flavours and techniques.

The Queen’s Dinner – Another major claim to fame was his contribution to the Queen’s Visit to Ireland in 2011. He was the lead chef with Ross Lewis that designed and presented the state banquet at Dublin Castle in honour of Queen Elizabeth.